I fell asleep at my desk and dreamed about Arthur again. In the dream, we were in my apartment. Arthur was reading on the sofa. I scooted closer and rested my chin on his shoulder. "Darling," I whispered, "can I have a kiss?" By now, the Arthur in my dreams was used to how clingy I could be. He simply closed his book and turned to me. "Where?" I pointed to my lips. He leaned down. His breath had barely brushed my face when two light taps sounded by my ear. The next second, the living room vanished. The clatter of keyboards and the chill of the office air conditioning rushed in all at once. Arthur stood beside my desk, a faint crease between his brows. And my hand was wrapped tightly around the sleeve of his suit. "Miss Bennett." His gaze dropped to my hand. "Would you mind letting go?" I released him as if I'd been burned. "S-sorry." "Meeting in 3 minutes." With that, he turned and walked away. A few steps later, he lifted a hand to the corner of his mouth, then quickly lowered it again. I must have imagined it. The real Arthur didn't even know that, for the past 6 months, he had been my boyfriend in my dreams.

Three months into my pregnancy, I went back to my advisor's lab as a research assistant, desperate to earn enough money to keep my babies safe. That evening, the research center sent me to deliver some documents to a private club. There, I stumbled upon my husband drinking with his friends in a private room. Vincent Harrington leaned back on the couch and lit a cigarette. "Is giving my wife $300,000 a month not enough?" His friend nearly jumped off the couch. "$300,000 isn't enough? How much money can Natalie possibly spend? She's not using your money to bankroll another man, is she?" The room went quiet. Vincent's expression hardened. "She said she was short on money last night, so I sent her another $100,000. But this morning, she asked for a divorce. She said if I couldn't afford her, I should let her go." Standing outside the door, I shook with anger. I looked down at the swell of my belly. That was the last straw. I shoved the door open and stormed inside. Before he could react, I slapped him across the face. "Tell me, exactly how many wives do you have?" His eyes were bloodshot as he ground out, "Only you..." I froze. "Then why do I only receive $200 a month?"

Natalie Reid, my best friend who had sworn off marriage, adopted a 3-year-old girl. From that day on, my boyfriend started going to her apartment frequently. Every time, he was impatient. "If the kid didn't only let me hold her, I wouldn't bother going." Natalie would roll her eyes too. "Who wants you here? The kid likes you, not me." They argued every time they met. As they argued, he memorized the code to her apartment. He also knew she had sensory overload and couldn't stand noise. He even missed my birthday. Friends advised me. An abandoned child needs more stability. You should be understanding. I told myself the same thing. Later, my parents came to see him and waited 3 hours. He never showed. He said the child had a fever again, and Natalie couldn't handle it alone. I went to Natalie's apartment without telling anyone. The door opened. The apartment was eerily quiet. No children's items. No toys. Not a single pair of tiny shoes in the entryway. Only Ethan's men's shoes, the shirt he said he'd sent to the dry cleaner, and a sticky note on the fridge. Ethan: Trouble, don't order takeout. Wait for me to come back and cook dinner. —E Trouble. A name he only used for someone he loved.

I was the laughingstock of Bellport high society. Everyone laughed at me for taking care of my husband's mistresses for money. They weren't wrong. $6 million bought my grandmother three more years. It was worth every penny. After my grandmother died, I slipped our divorce agreement into the settlement papers for his latest mistress. Taking my chance, I put the stack in front of my husband, Alex Hawthorne. He signed without even looking, then pulled me into his arms. "You're the best, Eve. Sensible, and you always look out for me." He thought that as long as he named a price, I'd stay by his side. But this time, I didn't want another $6 million. I wanted him out of the rest of my life for good.

Ten days before our wedding, my fiance vanished. When I followed the scent of our mate bond and found him, he was leaning beside a fireplace, laughing with a roomful of werewolves. "I only pursued Eve to get under Noah's skin. When the ceremony comes, I'll leave her kneeling at the altar alone. The last of the Silver Wolf bloodline, cast aside by two Alphas in a row... Now that will be a show worth watching." Later, he stood at the altar in his finest clothes, but his bride never came. All he received was a blood-written letter ending our engagement.

In my previous life, my older sister forced me to marry a filthy, penniless homeless drifter.   10 years later, that drifter became Q, a legendary investor worth several billion dollars, and I became the wealthy wife everyone envied.   After we were both reborn, my sister was the first to take his hand and vowed to marry him at any cost.   But there was one thing she didn't know.   I was the real Q.   The man she'd fought to marry didn't know how to do a thing. He had only ever been a front man I pushed into the spotlight.

My son used to love his father more than anyone. But every time a choice had to be made, his father would walk toward another woman and her child first. To keep him from hurting so much, I always made excuses for my husband: Daddy was just going to help someone who needed him more. Until the waiting, again and again, came to nothing—and my son started calling his father "uncle" instead. The last time was at the wedding my husband had finally agreed to hold for me, the one I'd waited seven years for.

After we sealed our mating bond, St. Clair University in Ravenport recruited Gavin Whitaker with an eight-figure salary. I gave up my forest and my throne and moved to Ravenport with our son to be by his side. Three years later, I still had not received an interspecies residency permit. Yet Natalie Smith—his assistant, who had moved with us—had already secured permanent residency through Gavin's connections. Once, I packed my bags and prepared to leave. Gavin, who rarely showed emotion, took my hand with tears in his eyes and begged me to stay. "I'm here to take care of you. Why should a piece of paper matter? Natalie came to Ravenport alone because of me. I had a responsibility to help her get settled first." I believed him. Then I went down to the Human-Werewolf Affairs Bureau to check on our marriage certificate. The clerk ran it through the system and said, flat, "Ms. Aya Bennett, you are not Professor Whitaker's spouse." Start to finish, I'd never once been his wife in the eyes of the law. I didn't ask Gavin to explain. I packed up everything that belonged to my son and me and booked the first flight out of Ravenport. Some goodbyes don't need saying.

My mother kept a ledger that recorded, down to the last cent, every expense incurred in raising me. After yet another hysterical argument, she screamed at me to pay back every penny. I said, "Fine. I'll pay you back—all of it." Not just the money. I'd return to you the life you gave as well.

Adrian Hawthorne gave his childhood sweetheart's daughter the emergency blood supply I had spent seven years building for myself. A colleague warned him that I—Claire Hart, his fiancée—was 21 weeks pregnant with twins. If I hemorrhaged without that blood in reserve, my babies and I could all die. He calmly signed the authorization anyway. "Claire isn't that fragile. She loves me. She'll understand." Standing outside the door, I looked down at the prenatal report I had just received, then turned around and scheduled a termination. That same night, he moved his childhood sweetheart and her daughter into the home we were supposed to share as newlyweds. Then he gave the girl the nursery I had decorated with my own hands. Clutching the stuffed animal I had bought for my babies, the girl sweetly called him Daddy. Meanwhile, I was clutching the papers authorizing the termination of my pregnancy.

My alpha had never welcomed my touch, and I had always believed it was because he simply didn't know how to let humans in. That was until seven years later, when I overheard him behind a closed door admitting that he had hated me all along. He blamed me for taking him away first in the middle of that deadly blizzard.   The truth was the werewolf brothers, who had lost their parents, had fallen for my sister, Chloe Miller, the moment they saw her. And the fragile bond I had believed was meant for me was nothing but a discarded link he had buried and ignored for seven years.   In the end, I learned that in his version of the story, I wasn't his savior—but the one who had cost him his true love. When the clerk asked a third time if I was sure about ending my relationship with Rowan Blake, I nodded.

My sister wanted my Alpha, so she and our parents poisoned me with wolfsbane. She erased her own scent, put on my nightgown, and sat on my marriage bed to wait for him to come home. My parents dreamed of seeing her wear the Luna's silver crown in my place and bear the strongest heir of all. When the door opened, she blushed and went to meet him, reaching up to remove his bloodstained cloak. She had yet to learn that killing was not the black wolf's most dangerous gift. The beast who struck terror into all seven clans could smell the blood beneath a lie.

The day I went in to have my bandages changed, my vision returned without warning. All I wanted was to surprise my husband with the news.   Instead, through the hospital's one-way observation window, I saw Adrian Hawthorne bend down and kiss another woman. He slipped the blue diamond ring my mother had left me onto her finger, then crouched and pressed his ear to her flat stomach.   I didn't open the door. I reached into my pocket, dimmed my phone's screen, and hit record.   Someone in the lounge asked, "Eve has been blind for over a year. You had Julian take your place every night so you could be with your mistress. Aren't you worried they'd actually fall for each other?"   Adrian laughed. "My brother wouldn't look twice at a naked model in his bed. Eve is blind. He'd be even less interested in her."   "I almost feel sorry for Julian. Even I'd kill for a body like his, but all he ever does in Eve's room is change her dressings and read to her. He hadn't even climbed into her bed. What a waste."   Laughter drifted through the half-open door.   I turned my head. Julian Hawthorne stood in the hallway, holding my coat and white cane. An old scar slanted across his collarbone beneath his collar. For the past 18 months, I had traced that scar in the dark whenever a nightmare woke me.   So the man who stayed beside my bed every night had never been my husband.   I put my blindfold back on and held out my hand to Julian.   Adrian was right about one thing. Leaving a man like that untouched for so long really was a waste.   Tonight, I'd find out how much longer my pretend husband could resist me.

Noah was in his final semester of nursing school and still needed $1,800 for tuition. I sold the wedding ring my grandmother Rose had worn for 47 years. The pawnshop gave me exactly $1,800. That night, I picked up a shift at the upscale karaoke bar to cover our overdue rent. There, I saw Noah—the man who had worn a convenience-store uniform that morning—sitting in the center of a private room in a custom-made suit. The liquor bill came to $73,000. The antique watch on his wrist was worth $200,000. The vintage sports car he'd just won was worth $1,200,000. And my ring had been worth only $1,800. Someone laughed. "We look for girls with no money, pretend we're broke, date them, then bet on whose girlfriend will sacrifice more." The car keys were tossed to Noah. "Congratulations. You win." I stood outside the door, still holding the staff meal I'd saved to bring home for him. So the stupid woman they'd been talking about—the one who'd sold a family heirloom for her broke boyfriend— Was me.

On the day Ryan was named captain of the Westbridge Hawks, I stood outside the locker room and heard him dismiss the 2 years we'd spent together. To help him rise from the bench to the starting lineup, I got up at 5:20 a.m. 4 mornings a week. I caught passes for him, timed his drills, filmed his training, and reviewed game footage with him. My palms were thick with calluses, and my right ring finger was almost always wrapped in athletic tape. At noon, I fastened a discontinued Rolex my older cousin had helped me track down around his wrist. That night, one of his teammates asked, "Evelyn's done so much for you. Are you really going to push her away for Naomi?" Ryan laughed. "She won't leave. But NFL scouts aren't going to notice me just because she gets up at five every day." Naomi claimed she was the heiress to a hotel group. She said her father sponsored an invitation-only prospect showcase attended by NFL scouts—and that she could secure Ryan a spot. Ryan believed her. What he didn't know was that Julian Vale, the man Naomi claimed was her father, was actually mine. And Cliffside Estate, the property she promised to open for everyone, was in my name too. I was the real heiress.

While scrolling through a post on Facebook, my hand trembled. A blogger gave a very detailed account of how she caught her husband and his sister having sex in their bedroom. I'm also quite worried about being disgusted by something like this, because my fiancé has a sister. What I found out soon enough was that he wasn't just lukewarm toward her. He was cold, and on his worst days, he was cruel. I watched him pick up one of her calls with nothing at all on his face. He listened for a long stretch without saying a word, and then he answered in a low, flat voice, "Then go ahead and die." I felt sorry for her in that moment. What I learned later was that the one who deserved pity was me.

My fiancé still hadn't figured it out—that plain, mousy girl he used to call ugly was slowly getting between us. Ours was an arranged marriage, but we actually fell in love. Everyone told me I was lucky: a husband who loved me, more money than I'd ever need. But they didn't know about her. She'd been chasing him since high school. Back then, he cursed her out every time he saw her. He said he wouldn't touch her even if she were the last woman on earth. Then things changed. He started giving her jobs and covering for her mistakes. And he'd begun pushing me aside—for her. Even when we were in bed, his mind was somewhere else. I was starting to worry about our wedding.